Hi there! It’s Ashlee, your host! I just wanted to say; I hope everyone is doing ok with everything going on in the world. Besides, this is a great way to get all of your reading done! Anyway, for today’s episode, I want to do a fun review of Saving Winslow by Sharon Creech. This is one of my Battle of the Books books, and I am excited to share my thoughts with all of you! And speaking of that, let’s get onto this week’s episode.
The Book Review Podcast
The Review
Saving Winslow is a short story of Louie, a 10-year-old boy who was trouble taking care of young animals, and a pitiful donkey that their Uncle Pete brought over. When Louie first sees it, he is determined to help the motherless donkey. As always, his parents doubt that the donkey, which Louie named Winslow, would survive very long, knowing how many pets Louie has had. (Keyword, had.)
But Louie ignores the comments and really tries his best to keep Winslow alive. We follow Louie as he meets new friends and faces some challenges along the way in this short story by Sharon. We also meet Nora, the younger sister of Claudine, a pessimistic girl who also agrees that Louie has no chance of letting this donkey survive. She soon reveals her more soft side for animals and becomes friends with Louie. Overall, a pretty simple and short story!
Author Praise
Sharon is a middle-grade author who has written many books before this one, like Walk Two Moons and Love that Dog. She adds some entertaining parts to this book to make the short story more than just one boring plot. Once again, she can make this story short and simple for younger readers to easily understand.
Basic Facts
- Saving Winslow is 175 pages long
- Altogether, there are 49 chapters and don’t worry, they’re really short
- This book did not win an award
- The author is Sharon Creech
- The publishing brand is HarperCollins Publishers!
What’s My Rating?
Out of five stars, I would give this book a 3,5 out of 5 stars. Yes, I understand that it doesn’t sound like a good rating, but let me explain why I gave this book 3.5 stars. First off, this book is really short. That means it’s not going to be super entertaining and the characters don’t give you a lot of time to learn about them.
Second, I thought that this story was overall pretty bland and didn’t have a lot of diversity in it. It was a simple story about a boy and a donkey and the boy tries to save the donkey by taking care of it. Even that, and I wouldn’t have been interested. It does have a happy ending and a happy feel to it, so that’s the good thing about it. It’s pretty heartwarming, but the plot is the part that makes me uninterested.
Would I Recommend It?
I definitely wouldn’t think of recommending this book to someone. I personally like thicker books with fun characters and an interesting plot, and this book isn’t really near those expectations. (Not like every book I read has to be thick, with fun characters, and an interesting plot) It’s a short read and it’s not the most entertaining story in the world. If someone wanted a short read, let’s say, I may consider letting them know about this book.
Highlights
Here is the highlights section of the podcast! Remember, I am going to make some spoilers! So please be aware of that.
- I think that Nora and Louie have a great friendship and fast friends. At first, Nora seems all boring and pessimistic and even a bit mean, but in the end, she was just preparing for the worst! And overall, and I think their friendship was really nice
- I was really happy that Louie had lots and lots of determination to make Winslow happy and help him survive, regardless of all he’s been through. Louie was really kind to him and really did his best to save Winslow!
- To go along with what I just said, because Louie tried hard to save Winslow and take care of him, he actually succeeded in doing so! It gave the story such a happy ending and make the short story a bit worthwhile.
Character Thoughts
And finally, the character thoughts segment! My favorite! If you didn’t know, I love characters! In this story, I’ll admit we have some pretty bland characters, but I still wanted this share what I think. As I mentioned in the highlights section, I was saying how I liked how Nora changed from being more dark and gloomy to a more open and fun character, and I like that change.
To say a character I didn’t like is actually harder then you think. So, I guess I’ll have to say, no one! (Am I allowed to do that?) but for my favorite character, I’ll say Claudine because she was really nice and even though she wasn’t at all the main character of this story, she was an interesting character to add to the story!
Thank You for Listening
To end this off I just want to say, thank you for listening and I hope you enjoyed this review of Saving Winslow by Sharon Creech. Have a great day everybody and here is our official I Readability ending!
